Christine McVie wants to rejoin Fleetwood Mac

Singer-keyboardist Christine McVie, 70, wants to rejoin Fleetwood Mac, the band from which she retired 15 years ago, in 1998, she tells Britain’s Guardian.

In September, she joined the band onstage at London’s O2 Arena for the final number, a 1977 smash she wrote, “Don’t Stop” and it appears to have rekindled her love of performing with the band.

“I like (the idea of) being with the band, the whole idea of playing music with them. I miss them all. If they were to ask me would probably be very delighted... but it hasn’t happened so we’ll have to wait and see,” she said.

When asked why she quit, she replied: “I think I was just music’d out. I suffered from some kind of delusion that I wanted to be an English country girl, and it took me 15 years to realize that it’s not really what I wanted after all.”

The Mac’s world tour is currently on hold as founding bassist John McVie, who was married to Christine from 1968-1976, undergoes cancer treatment. “John’s got to get well first, so it hasn’t been talked about. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Monty Python to reunite

After months of secret negotiations and various personal hatchets being buried, what was seemingly thought impossible will occur: the five surviving members of the Monty Python comedy troupe that formed in 1969, will reunite, reports the Hollywood Reporter.

John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam (sixth member Graham Chapman died of cancer in 1989), each of whom are at least 70, will reunite for five live shows, July 1-5, 2014, at London’s 20,000-seat O2 Arena.

Initially, the comedy troupe that formed in London in 1969, scheduled only one show. However, after it sold out in 45 seconds, four more were immediately added four more shows, and tickets for all four of those shows were also sold in a minute.

A TV special is also rumored and Roger Friedman at Showbiz411.com says the group will also play shows in New York and Los Angeles. He added that they are considering a 100-date world tour.

All-star George Jones tribute concert

On the evening George Jones scheduled as his final show, a star-studded group of his friends gathered at the site of that would-be concert, the 17,113-seat Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, to celebrate his life with a lengthy 48-song, two-set concert, reports the Tennessean. Jones, known as “Possum” and also “No Show” because of his severe addiction to cocaine and alcohol, died in Nashville on April 26 at age 81.

“Playin’ Possum: The Final No-Show,” on Nov. 22 was one of the most star-studded concerts ever and drew a diverse group of performers, from country superstars Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and George Strait to soul survivor Sam Moore of Sam and Dave, to country-rock-hip-hop crossover Kid Rock to rocker Tommy Shaw of Styx, to heavy metelers Megadeth.

Willie Nelson’s tour bus crashes

Willie Nelson suspended his “Old Farts and Jackass Tour” when three of his Family band were injured, including one seriously, when the tour bus containing his band crashed on an icy bridge near Sulphur Springs, Texas, 80 miles northeast of Dallas, according to ABC News. The 80-year-old Nelson was not on board that bus at the time of the crash. Drummer Paul English was hurt the worst, suffering a broken hip. The other two only suffered bumps and bruises.

“The last four dates in November have been postponed and the tour resumed as scheduled in December,” according to his website.

If the plan holds, then the tour would resume on Dec. 10-11 at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Among the tour’s other stops are at the Pechanga Casino in Temecula on Dec. 12, the Lancaster Performing Arts Center on Dec. 16 and the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert on Dec. 17.

Ringo meets mystery fans after 49 years

Shortly after The Beatles landed at JFK Airport in New York in February 1964 amateur shutterbug Ringo Starr took a photo of six high schoolers who were riding along with the group in an attempt to catch a glimpse of them as the headed to their hotel.

That photo provides the centerfold of “Photograph,” Ringo’s new book of pictures he took during the first years of Beatlemania. The editors at USA got curious about the six teens and began a nationwide search to find them. While one of them died in 2011, the remaining five were found and a reunion was held on NBC’s “Today” show and then last weekend with the five-some and the Beatles’ drummer at a concert with Ringo and his All-Starr Band, for which they were given VIP seats. The 73-year-old Ringo met, chatted and hugged each of them and they posed inside a car for a photo matching the one from almost half-a-century ago.

A delighted Ringo said, “That photo became much bigger than I ever thought it would, I mean, I just put it in the book because it’s a great shot, and then, suddenly in America, everyone was trying to find them. “

New Releases

Among the recently released albums, digital reissues, MP3 downloads and deluxe box sets are a 5-CD, 61-song box, “The Mickie Most Years & More” from the original blues-rocking Animals (Eric Burdon’s English Animals, not his West Coast psychedelic Animals), includes lots of bonus cuts; “Foreverly,” from Norah Jones and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, reinterprets The Everly Brother’s 1958 LP, “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us”; and at age 76, Bill Cosby has a 2-CD comedy album of new material from his first comedy special in three decades, “Far From Finished.”

“Again” is Welsh New Wave pub rocker Dave Edmunds’ second album in twenty years; a comprehensive 8-CD set, “There’s a Dream I’ve Been Saving,” is from Nancy Sinatra’s late singing partner, country singer-songwriter Lee Hazlewood; a re-release of country-rock pioneer Poco’s third album, “From the Inside,” from 1971, with a pair of previously unreleased bonus cuts; a 19-CD box from guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s post-Deep Purple band, “Rainbow Singles Box”; and “Back to Brooklyn” is a 24-song live album of Barbra Streisand’s 2013 concert at the Barclay’s Center and features nine songs she’s never performed before in concert.

The reissue of The Temptations’ “Reunion” featured the 1982 version of the legendary Motown vocal quintet led at the time by Dennis Edwards and also former group lead singers Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin; a 6-CD import box set, “Fisherman’s Box,” from Mike Scott and his Scottish Celtic folk-rockers, The Waterboys; an import from English pop superstar Robbie Williams, “Swings Both Ways,” includes his versions of Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher,” and duets with guests Kelly Clarkson, Michael Buble, Lily Allen and Rufus Wainwright.

“Paris 1969 (CD/DVD) from North Carolina-born jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, who received posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy and Pulitzer Prizes after his fatal stroke in 1982 at age 64; “No End” is a previously unreleased album recorded in 1986 by free-form jazz pianist Keith Jarrett that sees him play all the instruments, including a lot of electric guitar; “Have a Merry Christmas With Anita O’Day” captures the hip ‘40s Big Band singer in the ‘70s backed by a jazz trio; and “Black Sabbath Live…Gathered In Their Masses CD/DVD” captures the English metal god’s reunion tour earlier this year in Melbourne, Australia.

Note from the Editor: Steve Smith’s music columns will now post online in two parts each week on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Steve Smith writes a new Classic Pop, Rock and Country Music News column every week. Like, recommend or share the column on Facebook. Contact him by email at Classicpopmusicnews@gmail.com.